Summer Sunset
by prettypurple
Summary: An innocent game leads to troubling thoughts for Rose Quartz. She decides that what she needs is some alone time. SPOILERS
1. Sunset

**Steven Universe belongs to Rebecca Sugar.**

 **Spoilers for "A Single Pale Rose"!**

* * *

On a beautiful summer evening in Beach City, a passer-by might have seen what looked like a happy couple playing with an odd-looking purple puppy on the beach. In fact, this couple was Rose Quartz and Greg Universe, and the "puppy" was Amethyst. They were having some fun near the Temple, while Pearl sat near the Warp Pad and watched the lovely sunset.

Rose really did see a lot of herself in Amethyst: they had both been the youngest of their groups, and they had both come out of the ground smaller than they should have been. Rose wanted Amethyst to see how much she was cared for, and so she often indulged Amethyst's odd whims, as opposed to dismissing them.

Amethyst had seen some humans play fetch with their dogs, and she had seen humans play with odd colourful discs and balls and other funny-looking things. They threw them back and forth, or to the dogs. Rose marveled at how humans and dogs could take pleasure in such simple things.

Earlier, Amethyst had returned from Vidalia's house with a present Vidalia had given her: one of the flying discs. It used to be just a plain disc, but Vidalia had painted a silly face on it, like the one on her work uniform. She managed to talk Rose and Greg into playing with her, after the Gems returned from a mission and Greg got off work.

Rose would throw the disc to Greg, and he would throw it to Amethyst the Purple Puppy. Amethyst liked to catch the disc by jumping in the air and grabbing it with her mouth. She found it funny to grab objects with her mouth, which was a reason why Amethyst liked to play as a dog.

"Pearl," Rose called, "would you like to play with us?"

"No thank you," Pearl said primly.

Amethyst ran over to Pearl and jumped into her lap. When Amethyst tried to lick Pearl, Pearl scooted backward and put her arm between her face and Amethyst's tongue.

"Ugh, Amethyst, you know I don't like that!"

It was true. Pearl didn't like real dogs either. She thought they were too "forward", and too messy, and too loud. Of course, those were the same reasons Amethyst liked dogs. Amethyst had perfected the begging puppy look, and she used it on Pearl until Pearl sighed and agreed to join the game, just for a little while.

It would be an understatement to say that Pearl was an unenthusiastic player, even with Rose's gentle encouragement. Greg threw the disc to Amethyst, and Amethyst threw it to Pearl. Pearl cringed and took a step back, letting the disc drop to the ground. Amethyst let out an annoyed bark.

"You're supposed to catch it, Pearl," Greg said. He said it in a nice way, but Pearl still scowled at him.

"It's been in Amethyst's mouth. I don't want it."

"You could throw it to me," Rose said. She was careful to make this a suggestion and not an order.

"Why do you want it back?" Pearl asked. "You just threw it to Greg, and he discarded it as well. Now this disc is disgusting."

"It's part of the game," Rose said.

Pearl huffed, picked up the disc between her forefinger and thumb, then flung it to Rose.

"Nice fling you got there, Pearl," Greg said. "Are you sure you never played this before?"

Pearl didn't answer. She stared at the sunset, then at the sand.

"Heads up, Pearl!" Greg called.

Pearl looked up, and the disc hit her in the face. She narrowed her eyes at Greg.

"Why do you humans say 'heads up' when you ought to mean 'heads down?' "

Rose put her hand on Pearl's shoulder.

"Are you okay?"

Pearl scowled and rubbed her nose.

"I'm sorry, Rose, but I just don't see the point of this."

"That's alright," Rose said kindly. "You don't have to keep playing just because we are."

"Thank you," Pearl said with visible relief. She resumed her position near the temple and continued to stare at the sunset. Rose stared after her, then got an unpleasant surprise as the disc nearly hit the side of her head. Rose caught it just in time, and turned to see a sheepish-looking Greg and a less bouncy Amethyst.

"Are you okay, Rose?" Greg asked. At the sound of his voice, Pearl looked over with alarm and a bit of anger.

"It's okay," Rose said, to both Greg and Pearl. "It didn't hit me."

Greg still looked concerned.

"Do you want to stop playing?"

Amethyst whimpered and made big puppy eyes.

"Yes," Rose admitted after a pause. She, Greg, and Amethyst (who had a drooping tail) went to sit with Pearl. Rose sat between Greg and Pearl and placed her arms around both of them, while Amethyst put her head in Rose's lap.

Rose kept looking at Pearl, who now gripped Rose's hand rather tightly. She knew, deep down, that even though Pearl would proudly claim that she belonged to no-one, Pearl had never truly become free. Pearl was still bound by that dark secret she and Rose had kept for so long. Also, Rose could have ordered Pearl to keep playing with the disc, and Pearl would have had no choice but to obey.

Rose didn't like to think about her past, about her old self, and yet the memories kept coming back. They were sort of like that funny little flying disc: if you threw it away, it got thrown back. Or it was like that object called a boomerang. That was pretty much the same.

When Rose experienced these flashes of guilt, and recalled her painful memories, she liked to go off to her room. Tonight, she decided to wait until Greg went to sleep and Pearl and Amethyst went to their rooms.


	2. Starlight and Moonlight

The sun had completely vanished from the sky, but Greg and Rose stayed out a little longer to look at the stars. Greg admired the crescent moon.

"I always liked crescent moons the best. They look like little sideways smiles." He paused and added, "Or a toenail."

Rose giggled, but her uneasy feelings didn't go away. The moon always made her think of her old Moon Base. She had never told Greg about that. Rose knew she shouldn't keep secrets from Greg. Garnet always said communication was the key to a strong relationship, as Ruby and Sapphire needed to communicate constantly in order for Garnet to remain stable. Still, Rose worried Greg would turn away from her if he ever found out who she once was.

"Are you okay, Rose?" Greg asked, giving Rose's hand a gentle squeeze.

"Yes," Rose said, though her voice was soft and distant. She turned to Greg and smiled. "Want me to walk you back to the van?"

Greg nodded, so they walked back to Greg's van with their arms linked. He climbed into the back of the van and lay on his stomach, propping himself on his elbows.

"Will you be alright?" Rose said. She knew most humans did not live in their vehicles, and so she couldn't help but be concerned for her sweet Greg.

"I'll be fine," Greg said. "It's summer, so I won't freeze."

Rose gave Greg a little peck on the lips. He had started to grow a beard, and she liked it. It tickled her whenever they kissed.

Rose stayed with Greg until he fell asleep, which didn't take long. She envied the peaceful expression on his relaxed face, and she couldn't think about how she and Greg were not so different.

Greg had told Rose about his family, about how his parents had never really understood or supported him, and how they had disapproved of him straying from their hopes he would become an engineer, and instead became a musician. She knew that Greg Universe had once been Greg DeMayo. It seemed that Greg chose his own path and his own name without any difficulty or regrets. Lucky, lucky him. Greg had also told Rose that if he ever had a child, he would support them no matter what.

Greg was almost impossibly good. Rose wondered if she truly deserved him. Probably not. Rose felt guilty and sad that it took her relationship with Greg to finally get a meaningful connection with a human. As much as Rose envied humans, it was sobering for her to realize that for millennia, she had never fully understood what complex beings humans were.

On her way back to the temple, Rose encountered something unusual on the beach: an orange-haired human woman with glasses, wearing a funny pouch with a squirming orange-haired baby in it.

The woman seemed startled to see Rose, but she calmed down quickly and politely greeted Rose.

"Hello," Rose said. "If you don't mind my asking, what are you doing?"

"I'm just trying to put my son to sleep," the woman said, while the baby let out a little cry. "I heard that listening to ocean sounds can calm babies down. Most parents use recordings of the ocean, but since the real thing is so close, I decided to just take a little stroll down here."

The woman spoke in a rather nervous tone, but she slowly relaxed as her son quieted down.

"He's very cute," Rose said softly.

"Thank you," said the woman. "His name is Laramie, and he's ten months old. Do you have any children?"

Rose shook her head.

"I've thought about it, but...it's very complicated."

"I understand," the woman said. "Having a child is a big decision, and it took quite a while for my husband and I to have our boy."

After a slightly awkward goodbye, the woman left with her son, and Rose watched them until she couldn't even see the mother's silhouette anymore. There had been other questions she wanted to ask. She knew how human babies were made, and Amethyst had become very interested in human reproduction after Vidalia explained it to her, much to Pearl's mortification. Rose also knew that in the very recent past, human women often died when they had their babies.

Yellow and Blue would not have liked babies. They would have found babies disgusting and noisy, and they would not have seen the point of creating a creature that needed others to care for it. Still, Rose liked how babies could learn, instead of automatically knowing what to do. Knowledge was more meaningful when it was earned.

* * *

When Rose returned to the temple, she was glad that the other Gems were in their rooms. She worried that Pearl and Amethyst might be arguing over which game was better: chess or catch. They would have expected Rose to take sides, and Rose was not in the mood for that right now.

Rose's gem glowed, and it opened the door to her room. She slipped inside and sighed contentedly when greeted by the sight of the fluffy pink clouds, hoping that she could relax at last.

Unfortunately, it would not work out that way. Not tonight.


	3. Clouds and Sand

Rose settled on one of the pink clouds and stared at nothing in particular. There were all sorts of thoughts running through her head, odd ones.

She sometimes liked to relax with Greg and look at clouds, keeping their eyes open for clouds which looked like things. This was yet another human game which made no sense to Pearl, who insisted that clouds could only ever be clouds. Pearl often reminded Rose of Yellow, though Rose never admitted this out loud.

Rose had heard a famous human story about a creature called a mermaid, which was a human woman on top, but had a fish tail instead of legs. Rose wondered how humans could imagine such strange things, but imagination was a human quality Rose liked very much. Gems had little to no concept of fiction, but Rose admired how humans could describe something non-existent as though it were real.

Anyhow, Rose could relate to the young mermaid in the story. The mermaid also had a fascination with humans, and wanted to be one. The mermaid's species were long-lived, at least by human standards and she had been part of a group of powerful mer-people who ruled the ocean, and the mermaid hadn't liked it. The mermaid wanted an eternal soul, which Rose understood was something special that allowed humans to live on after their bodies died, because mermaids did not have one. She had loved humans so much that she had even fallen _in_ love with a human, and had decided to became a human herself, even though it caused her great physical and emotional pain.

When Rose had told this story to Pearl, Pearl had found it silly. She had dismissed the idea of an eternal soul as an invention of humans who couldn't accept their short lifespans. But Pearl had cried at the ending and so had Rose, because the mermaid had not gotten her soul or the human she loved. She had died, after sacrificing almost everything she had to be with this human: her voice, her family, her species, her long lifespan.

Greg had taken Rose to see the tenth anniversary re-release of the movie version of this story, which had a happier ending. Still, Rose kept dwelling on the original version. How far would Rose go to have a true human experience? How far was it even possible for her to go?

Rose asked the room for a mirror, and it appeared in her hand. She stared at her reflection and thought about how she had tried to perfect her human appearance, but it didn't change the fact that this body was just an illusion, just as this room was no more than an illusion.

The clouds darkened, and rain began to pour down around Rose, not unlike the tears falling from her eyes. She couldn't handle this anymore.

Rose left her room, wishing for some company. She didn't think the other Gems would understand what troubled her, and she couldn't really explain without revealing her best-kept secret. And Rose really didn't want to wake up Greg, as she knew how much he needed to sleep.

Still, Rose was tempted to wake Greg. She walked along the beach in the direction of the car wash, enjoying the feeling of the wet sand on the soles of her feet. Rose found shoes terribly confining, which was part of the reason why her Rose Quartz form lacked shoes. That, and the humans of the Rebellion days hadn't really worn shoes. It just wasn't a thing back then.

Halfway to the car wash, Rose went back in the other direction. She couldn't disturb Greg; she just couldn't.

Rose wondered why she couldn't make a decision of where to go and just stick to it. This was a recurring problem for her. On Earth, she was free to do what she liked, but there were so many choices of what to do that Rose simply couldn't just pick one.

Back on the subject of secrets and sand, Rose decided to go to the desert and visit her secret lion friend. She returned to the temple, stepped onto the Warp Pad and disappeared.


	4. Desert Sun, Desert Moon

This North African desert might have been agonizingly hot for a human, but it was nothing to a Gem, since Gems easily adjusted to the temperatures and gravity of other worlds they meant to conquer.

Rose had witnessed early human civilizations in Africa, such as Ancient Egypt, and they had surprised her. From the way the other Diamonds had described organic life, she had been left with the impression that organics lacked the intelligence to build cities. Rose admired how ancient humans had been able to build cities, despite not having the technological advancements of Gems.

There was another creature that had captured Rose's fascination in in Africa: the lion. Rose admired how lions lived together in groups and looked out for each other, and she thought lion cubs were among the most adorable of all Earth's creatures. A lion's furry mane did look somewhat ridiculous, and yet majestic at the same time. Rose understood why humans called the lion "the King of Beasts."

As Rose stepped off the Warp Pad, she looked around for the pink lion. Lion would sometimes greet her at the Warp Pad, but other times, she would have to look for him. It all seemed to depend on Lion's mood. Often, he would be wherever the moving sand castle was.

Rose was right: Lion was indeed curled up by the sand castle, apparently asleep. He raised his head and blinked slowly as Rose approached him.

"Hello, my friend."

Lion stood up and gave Rose a penetrating stare, one as intense as the desert's heat. Rose felt a little ashamed.

"I'm sorry I haven't visited for a while. I've had a lot on my mind."

Lion tilted his head, then came closer to Rose and nuzzled her. Then, he bent his head down, and his mane glowed. Rose shook her head.

"No, I don't need to go in there today. I just wanted to take a walk."

* * *

Rose and Lion walked across the desert at a leisurely pace. This reminded Rose of the old days, when she had an entire pride of lion companions.

As much as Rose admired humans, she often preferred to be around non-human life, such as her lions or her moss. Humans were such complex creatures; even after so many millennia on Earth, Rose still had trouble fully understanding them. Maybe she never would understand them, a most sobering thought.

Rose didn't really have a destination in mind as she and Lion crossed the desert, but she found herself at her personal dump.

Ah, Rose's garbage dump, filled with things she didn't need or want. She could see her old Diamond ship poking out of the sand, and remembered how excited she had been on first receiving it, not unlike a human teenager receiving a car of their own.

Rose and Lion moved on.

As night fell, Rose and Lion cuddled together. Though Lion was a proud creature, he was more than willing to cuddle. Rose petted his fur and mane, recalling when Lion was just an ordinary lion. Even before Rose brought him back to life, this lion had been her favourite. He seemed more attuned to her than the other lions and the lionesses.

Petting Lion's mane made it glow, but that was an accident. Lion stared at her, and Rose moved her hand away.

She didn't want to go into her pocket dimension. She didn't want to face Bismuth, even if Bismuth was bubbled away. It was too risky to release Bismuth; that would unleash so many secrets to Garnet, Pearl, and Amethyst, and Bismuth probably would not be in a good mood, to put it lightly.

Rose gazed up at the stars, and focused on the full moon. She thought of the Moon Base, and then tried to focus her gaze elsewhere. Rose tried to think about all of the names humans gave to constellations, and Greg's stories about how looking through his uncle's telescope contributed to his fascination with space.

Space, space, Moon Base. No, that thought was not about to go away. Rose had to find a way to let it go.

"Lion, I hate to ask so much of you, but...could you please take me to the moon?"

Lion gave Rose another withering look. Rose sighed.

"If you do, I promise I'll visit more often."

Lion nuzzled Rose, and she took that as a 'yes."


	5. Past, Present, Future

**Spoilers for "Now We're Only Falling Apart".**

* * *

A human might have considered a journey through so many portals to be like a discombobulating roller coaster. Rose thought something to that effect, but she didn't mind.

Lion minded, though. By the time he and Rose reached the Moon Base, the poor thing was exhausted. Rose stroked Lion's mane and left him to rest. She walked up the stairs, ignoring the murals on the walls.

* * *

Rose stared at her old throne, then slowly sat down in it. She'd sat in this very spot as she tried to reason with Yellow and get Earth to be left in peace. Pink Diamond had tried to sit straight and proud and look like someone who could take things seriously and be authoritative, but Yellow still couldn't see Pink as anything more than a small, silly, source of exasperation.

Then there was Blue. Pink Diamond had got down on her knees before Blue Diamond and begged her to let the Earth be left alone. Yellow would have called Pink's pleas an embarrassing display, but Pink had hoped Blue would take her side. Rose realized in the present that it had been naive to think Blue would be any different than Yellow. Blue's soft-spoken politeness only provided the thinnest cover for her true, cold ruthlessness.

The human zoo had been more Blue's idea than Pink's. Blue had been the one to take those humans from their families and dump them all in an artificial environment. Obviously, those humans had not been pleased with this, and so they were forced into a rigidly structured lifestyle. After enough generations passed, the humans in the zoo became far easier to control, as this life was all they knew.

Blue may have meant well, Rose supposed, at least when it came to Pink, but she had completely missed the point of what it meant to be a human: to follow your own path, be an individual. All of the zoo humans were pretty much the same.

Blue and Yellow had both merely understood Pink's desires on a superficial level. They thought giving her a planet would make her happy, but had given her little say in running it, and they hadn't given Pink the respect she truly craved. Pink had wanted a Pearl, and she had got one, but at the time, Pearl had been so submissive. Having someone who agreed with Pink on everything had made Pink uncomfortable, and a bit bored. You couldn't have a stimulating conversation with someone who always agreed with you. And as for saving Earth's lifeforms, the zoo was an unfunny joke.

This had cemented Pink's belief that none of the Diamonds truly cared about her, and the straw that made her want to be Rose forever.

* * *

Tentatively, Rose lowered herself into her throne. It didn't feel right anymore. She'd been excited to get a throne of her own, but this was before Rose had learned that seats could be soft and comfortable. Humans did love their comfort, and Rose fully understood why. That was the reason her room in the temple had fluffy clouds.

The Observation Orb still worked, and Rose looked through all the real-time projections, going to as many places as she could think of. She did this for quite some time, longer than she had intended, because the orb was almost as addictive as television. With so many time zones, there was always someone on Earth who was awake and active. Night somewhere was day elsewhere. Obvious, perhaps, but Rose liked how philosophical it sounded.

Rose looked through images of cities and towns, noting how humans seemed to change at night. They wanted to have fun at night, even though less light might make activities less practical.

Practical, practical...Rose realized that her thoughts were beginning to sound like things Yellow or Blue might say. Maybe it was not a good idea to have come back to the Moon Base; it could be bringing too much of her repressed Diamond nature to the surface.

An overwhelming, wistful loneliness came over Rose. The feeling was even stronger than the wistfulness and envy Rose had felt when she used the Orb to watch the Amethysts come out of the Prime Kindergarten, and how the new soldiers had hugged each other. The hug had been what really made Rose sad, seeing affection and a sense of belonging that the Diamonds didn't have. All the power in the universe was a poor substitute for genuine emotional connections.

Rose remembered the Amethysts mention that "8XM" was late. She had never expected to actually see that late Amethyst. Rose hadn't told Amethyst about her number; numbering a sapient being was demeaning.

What had happened to those other Amethysts? Rose wondered. Had they been shattered? They had seemed so happy to be alive, but their lives might have been lost because of her. Or worse, they might have failed to escape Earth, and gotten corrupted.

* * *

Rose wondered where she could go from here. It seemed she'd come full circle: Pink Diamond had once looked through the Orb's projections at a life she could never have, and now Rose Quartz was doing the same thing, looking at humans. The Orb's projections glitched as Rose heaved a deep sigh.

Rose looked though more scenes of human activity, when she saw something that really caught her attention: a room full of tiny babies, separated from a group of adults by a window. Rose hadn't realized that babies could get _this_ small; the babies she had seen were usually a few months old. These little babies were in boxes with names on them, and the adults were smiling in spite of being separated from their children. The babies were wrapped in either pink or blue blankets, and Rose couldn't help but be reminded of a Kindergarten, with all the new Gems gathering in one place.

But babies were so different. They didn't know what they were for. They knew they needed things, but were too helpless to get those things themselves. The babies wouldn't have to become slaves to evil dictators, but would go to loving homes and be nurtured and taught. That seemed more rewarding to Rose than automatically knowing something.

Rose finally turned off the Orb and returned downstairs, but the images of the babies stayed in her mind.


	6. Haunted

Lion continued to doze as Rose looked around at the murals. Rose may not have been in the Moon Base for millennia, but upon seeing the mural of her old self again, she was reminded of how she had never liked that mural. It looked nothing like her, though she knew that had been the point, to make her look more like one would expect of a mighty Diamond.

Rose glared at the murals of the other Diamonds, particularly at the number of planets they had conquered. How many sapient organisms had been exterminated when the Diamonds destroyed those planets? She knew she had made the best decision by rebelling...hadn't she?

The old Diamond insignia on the floor caused Rose to have flashbacks of her Crystal Gems becoming Corrupted. She felt tears in her eyes as she stared at the other three murals.

"Why couldn't you have just left us alone?" Rose shouted, her voice echoing in the mostly empty space.

Rose clenched her fist and nearly punched the wall, but stopped herself. Punching a wall was something Pink Diamond would have done. Rose hated her old self so much, but knew she couldn't truly escape her past. Her actions had had consequences she had never imagined, consequences she still had to deal with.

But she couldn't heal her corrupted friends. Rose felt tears on her cheeks, and became angry again. Why did her healing tears have to be so limited? If she could revive a dead lion, why couldn't she cure corruption? Her friends were in bubbles because of her, or running wild and suffering, and Rose couldn't atone for it.

Rose slumped against the wall, under her mural. When she looked at Yellow's mural, she could almost hear Yellow's scolding voice, as if Yellow was here right now.

"Don't you dare cry, Pink! You brought this on yourself with your defiance, incompetence, and lack of foresight! This was why you were not ready for a colony!"

"You could have listened to me," Rose said out loud, clenching her jaw.

Lion's ears perked up, as though he thought Rose was speaking to him.

Rose could hear an echoing voice that sounded like Blue.

"Why, Pink, why? I tried to help you! Why couldn't you have been more grateful?"

Rose covered her face and sobbed a little.

 _You didn't help me_ , Rose thought. _Why couldn't you have accepted me as I was?_

Then there came White's voice, which almost made Rose scream:

 _What's the matter, Starlight? Afraid of us? Afraid of yourself?_

Rose cried harder. She wasn't the sort to cry loudly, but that didn't mean her sorrow was any less painful.

Lion came up to Rose and gently nuzzled her. She sighed and ran her hand through his soft mane. She could understand why humans kept pets; they were comforting. She saw Lion as more of a friend than a possession, but he still had a soothing influence on her.

"Do you feel better, Lion?"

Lion nodded.

"Good. Could you please take me home?"


	7. Sunrise

**Might ease more into featuring Pearl's point-of-view.**

* * *

Lion took Rose back to the desert, and she warped home from there. The sun had started to come up, and Rose sat down to watch it. She listened to the waves on the sand, the cry of the gulls, and went a little further down from the entrance to the temple so that she could rest her feet on the soft sand, which was still cool from the night. This was just the thing she needed to calm her troubled mind.

"Rose?"

Rose gasped and turned around to see Pearl, who was tensed and now blushing blue.

"I'm so sorry, Rose! I didn't mean to-"

Rose held Pearl's hand in both of hers, and Pearl relaxed.

"It's okay, Pearl. I was just a little...distracted."

Pearl tensed again.

"What's the matter, Rose? You can tell me! I'll help you!"

Rose didn't think Pearl could help with what had been bothering her, but she didn't want to hurt Pearl's feelings.

"I'd be happy if you watched this beautiful sunrise with me. This is the kind of experience that's best enjoyed with others."

"I couldn't agree more!" Pearl said, uncomfortably reminding Rose of the days when they had been a dictator and a subservient slave.

Pearl leaned into Rose's side as they watched the slow ascension of the sun in the sky, and all of the beautiful pink clouds.

"I think I like sunrises more than sunsets," Rose said. "Sunrises represent a new day, and all of its possibilities."

Pearl nodded, but she was focused more on Rose than on the sunrise. She started to think about how Rose's hair matched the colour of the clouds. Rose was like a sunrise. She brought light into the darkened lives of oppressed Gems, and opened them to the idea that they could be more than what they were made to be. Poetry had never been Pearl's favourite form of human artistic expression, but maybe she should write a poem about Rose. She knew knights did that for the fair noblewomen they admired.

They enjoyed a few more minutes of tranquility before a chipper voice called, "Hi, Rose!" and Greg Universe came into view.

Pearl scowled. Greg wasn't usually awake this early, and the car wash wouldn't be opened for a couple more hours. This was _her_ time with Rose.

Rose stood up.

"Hi, Greg!"

She ran over to embrace Greg, going so far as to sweep him off his feet, the way Ruby often did with Sapphire.

Pearl watched Rose and Greg, the envy in her face slowly softening to sadness.


	8. Pondering Pearl's Potential

Greg had to go to work, leaving Rose alone on the beach. She turned to look over her shoulder, her gaze fixed on Pearl. Pearl still stood at the temple's entrance, hugging herself and looking sad. Rose wanted Pearl to feel better, so she beckoned for Pearl to join her by the water. Pearl immediately complied, sitting next to Rose and placing her feet in the path of the ocean's tide.

"The water feels nicer if you're barefoot," Rose said, wiggling her toes as the cool salt water touched them.

"I prefer to wear shoes," Pearl said. "Humans who don't wear shoes always look so sloppy."

Rose sighed. She loved Pearl, but couldn't help but be reminded of her original, pink Pearl. Pink Pearl probably would have enthusiastically dipped her feet in the ocean. But that Pearl was gone now, for all intents and purposes, and it was all Rose's fault. Rose wished she'd been more cautious, all those years ago. It wasn't fair that her first pearl had had to be punished for something Rose had done. It had taken Rose a long time to get used to the current Pearl, and even thousands of years later, she still couldn't help but compare Crystal Gem Pearl to Pink Pearl.

* * *

Pearl noticed the sadness in Rose's eyes.

"Rose, what's the matter?"

Rose smiled gently at Pearl and stroked her hand.

"Nothing is wrong, Pearl. It's just...have you ever wanted to be more than what you are?"

Pearl squeezed Rose's hand, feeling warm and soothed.

"Oh, Rose, you already helped me become more than what I was. I used to just be something, but now I'm some _one_ , not just another expendable possession."

Stars appeared in Rose's eyes, and so did tears.

"Oh, Pearl!"

Rose hugged Pearl, and Pearl happily returned the embrace.

* * *

As Rose hugged Pearl, she couldn't help but wonder if she was holding Pearl back, and not simply because of her last order to Pearl as a Diamond. Pearl had been on Earth for so long, but had never fully experienced the really special things about the planet. She seemed content to simply fight corrupted Gems, or visit Gem-related places, or stick around the temple, or sit by her favourite tree. If Pearl tried new activities, it was usually on Rose's suggestion.

Rose wanted Pearl to be free, truly free. Pearl deserved it.


	9. Imprisoned

After another mission, Rose despondently spent some time in the Burning Room, staring up at the bubbled gems. Not all of the gems in here were Crystal Gems, but Rose still felt bad for them. The Homeworld Gems were likely as victimized by Homeworld's caste system as the outcast Crystal Gems were. How many of the Homeworld soldiers had actually wanted to fight?

Rose recalled a Pink Agate that had worked for her, or rather, for Pink Diamond. Rose had destroyed the physical form of that Agate, and she hadn't been entirely comfortable with the deed. This had been a loyal Agate who had felt a measure of guilt at being forced to intimidate the gems under her command, and Rose had considered persuading her to join the Crystal Gems, but Pearl had worried that this would expose Rose's deception to the other Diamonds.

Rose also remembered a logical but unusually dreamy Peridot in the Crystal Gems who had taken an interest in the varied lifeforms of Earth, such as ants. She liked watching them march in a line to their little anthills, and she had watched bees as they flew from flower to flower, wondering what the bees were trying to achieve. She had taken an interest in the balance of nature, and how everything had fit together. Unfortunately, that Peridot had been shattered while trying to protect a flowery meadow that happened to be too close to a battlefield.

The memories caused Rose to tear up, which led to her feeling angry at how she couldn't heal these poor corrupted Gems with her tears. She couldn't help but have a flashback-

 _When the Homeworld Gems began to retreat, the Crystal Gems had began to rejoice, assuming they had won. But Rose felt anxious, as did Pearl and Garnet. This victory seemed to have come too suddenly, too easily._

 _They'd seen the three lights in the sky, the white, blue, and yellow. They'd heard the strange sound, and Rose barely had enough time to grab Pearl and Garnet and pull them behind her shield. She'd held them close as the corrupting light surrounded them._

 _And then...the awful sight that greeted them, and the anguished sounds..._

It wasn't fair, Rose thought. Her Crystal Gems had fought so hard for freedom and for Earth, but now most of them could not enjoy what they had dreamed of. Even Rose couldn't really enjoy her victory, because it wasn't really a victory. So many of her friends were gone or horrifically changed, and she couldn't help them. She'd gotten them into this predicament, but couldn't atone for it.

Humans had advanced their healing over the millennia, even though they had only managed to double their still-short lifespans. If only Rose could find some way to advance her healing powers, but she knew she wouldn't make much progress. She still had her limits, no matter how much she wanted to grow. She was stuck, as much of a prisoner of her limitations as the corrupted gems were prisoners within the bubbles.

If only Rose could start over...


End file.
